explode() doesn't separate a string by spaces?
arrays, explode, file-get-contents, php
Solution
tl;dr Your list is separated by something other than simple spaces - most likely multiple adjacent whitespace characters. You're actually seeing an HTML rendering of the data, in which multiple adjacent whitespace characters are displayed as one.
Note the `string(61)` in the results of `var_dump()`. `var_dump()` reports the type, length, and content of a variable (in the case of a string). That `string(61)` means there are 61 characters in your string. So, if you are really getting back the string `"name name name name "`, this implies there are characters that you are not seeing here. This could be because of the way whitespace displays in HTML: tabs, newlines, and other whitespace characters all look like simple spaces. Are you sure the text is separated by spaces, not tabs or other whitespace?
`explode()` will only split the string on exact matches to the specified character/string. If the text is separated by `\t`, `\n`, `\r`, or other non-printing characters, your `explode()` statement won't work. For example, if you have this:
name name name
(pretend those are tab characters above), then your `explode()` doesn't find any plain old space (``, character value 32) characters.
How to Fix This
Based on your comments below, your data contains newline (`\n`) characters, not plain spaces. You need to replace the second line of your code with this:
$newarray = explode("\n", $ingame_list);
Problem
I am attempting to open a text file and explode the list of names within into an array but when I `var_dump` the new array I get this: `array(1) { [0]=> string(61) "name name name name " }` The entire contents of the list goes into one single key field in the array. This is the code I'm using: ``` $ingame_list = file_get_contents('../../../../home/folder/folder/list.txt'); $newarray = explode(" ", $ingame_list); var_dump($newarray); ``` How can I get each name to be in its own key field within the new array?